On Friday, the Federal Register published U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s “Notice of Intent to Distribute Offset for Fiscal Year 2015.” Per the notice, certifications for fiscal year 2015 distributions must be received by the agency by July 28, 2015.
CBP issued a preliminary report regarding CDSOA funds that may be available for distribution in FY2015. For duties collected on shrimp imports, CBP reports a preliminary figure of $405,901.19 as available through April 30, 2015 for distribution in FY2015.
These amounts are preliminary figures. What is actually available for disbursement may be higher or lower depending on actions taken by CBP between now and fiscal year end.
CBP’s Notice explains that the agency will distribute this year funds that were previously being sequestered:
On March 17, 2015, OMB concluded that any amounts sequestered in the CDSOA Special Account during Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015 would become available in the subsequent fiscal year. See 2 U.S.C. 906(k)(6). As a result, CBP intends to include the funds that are temporarily reduced via sequester during Fiscal Year 2015 in the continued dumping and subsidy offset for Fiscal Year 2015, which will be distributed not later than 60 days after the first day of Fiscal Year 2016 in accordance with 19 U.S.C. 1675c(c). In other words, the continued dumping and subsidy offset that affected domestic producers receive for Fiscal Year 2015 will include the funds that were temporarily sequestered during Fiscal Year 2015. This differs from the distribution of sequestered funds for Fiscal Year 2014, which were distributed later in time as a supplemental distribution because, at the time of the Fiscal Year 2014 disbursement, CBP had not yet received OMB’s determination as to whether the sequestered funds would become available in the subsequent fiscal year.
An electronic version of the CDSOA certification for FY2015 can be found here: https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/8776895/
Review CBP’s Notice of Intent to Distribute Offset for Fiscal Year 2015 here:
https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/CDSOA-2015-Notice.pdf
Review CBP’s “FY 2015 Preliminary CDSOA Amounts Available” report here:
http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/FY2015%20Preliminary%20Numbers-CDSOA.pdf